Her First Day as a FIRST GRADER!! And a Rose Ceremony

This girl has been waiting YEARS for this day!

She is officially in the "Grades"!!!

Look at our new first grader on her first day of first grade! 

 bigtimestuff.

(He brought his {unworking} camera to take photos of the events of the day....and whack me in the shins with it at least a dozen times)

Her new classroom!!!!

The day started off with the Rose Ceremony in the garden--where the kindergarten teachers walk each rising first grader down a path of grades students and hand them over to their new first grade teacher.  We've attended this event every year, with Quinn looking forward to her big day!

What??!!  I wore shoes other than my tevas.  Toldya it was a big day!

 And this is his style, shoe-wise.

 Quinn's little friend photo-bombed us.  :)  This little girl came up to Quinn today and said, "Oh this is my good friend," and hugged her, then said, "What's your name again?" Which gave us all a good laugh!!

Daddy has a tradition of taking off the first day of school to take Q to her class!

 Ms. Helen, the lead Kindergarten teacher, and Quinn's first teacher at this school.  Such a lovely, beautiful educator and person!!

 Ms. Kelsey, walking Quinn to Mrs. Crossland, her new 1st grade teacher!!

 Can you see us over on the left?

 Walking off with her class to start the day.  Large and in charge!!

 Her class!

These are some pics from the school's website:

(you can see us in the crowd on the right side)

 Me and Quinn, caught examining the rose buds.  :)

 Her class!!  Mrs. Crossland and all her first grade mates!!

Afterwards we went out for breakfast.  He had already eaten a large breakfast, so he had breakfast dessert--chocolate gelato.  Life as a temporary only child is good.

We picked her up in a wonderful mood (unusual at the end of a school day, usually she is a grumpster!) and she had a great day and can't wait for tomorrow!  More details to come, but this Mama is tired!

Our Short-haired girl!

Quinn decided earlier in the year that she wanted to grow out her hair and donate it to an organization that makes cancer wigs.  We are penpals with a 10 year old girl in Georgia who has cancer, and it really touched Quinn's heart to see our friend's bald head in photos.  She has been talking about donating her ponytail ever since then.  

This week Mama decided it was haircut time, as Quinn's independence showering wasn't always working out so well--with some resulting interesting hair textures....crunchy, oily, we never quite knew what to expect, and I figured out she had too long of hair to wash herself.  

Once the haircut time came close, she began to get cold feet and thought she might want to grow her hair to her bootie, like she heard Aunt Megan had done as a child.  Q's hair is definitely not that kind of hair, it gets wild and stringy when it gets long...it was time for a big-time haircut.  She and Daddy spent lots of time looking at haircuts online (with some rather interesting results to show me) and we watched several videos about donating hair, as well as read the website, and she finally decided she was ready.  Mimi helped things out immensely and took her for the cut.  Q often does much better with things when I'm not involved and she of course loved getting to go without Beck and I.  It turned out being a fun day for her and she just loves her haircut and is so proud of her ponytail that will be mailed off to make a wig for a cancer patient.  

After researching it (and on the advice of several hair stylists) we are using Pantene's Beautiful Lengths program.  

Mimi got some great photos of the big event!

She looks adorable with her short hair!  

I am so proud of our girl's sweet, compassionate heart!  And thankful for those in our village who encourage it!

She's all about writing receipts these days. In duplicate.

Best dollar I spent this week.  

In Book News

She checked this out and I didn't think it all the way through, but we are going to wait a bit before going through the whole OZ series together.  I want her to remember these classics....Maybe next year.  :)  She listened to this, but we'll redo it in order when we start the series at some point.  I never like to read bigtime classics to early to my kids--I don't want too much to go over their heads and I want them to remember it.  

 She loves the "Freddy" series and is working her way through them.  They are definitely much higher-level for her and I am impressed she sticks through them!  She can retell the plot to me, so I know she comprehends them!

 She's almost done with this series:

 She and Daddy are working their way through this series:

her ipod

Our bookworm has expanded her ability to devour audiobooks.  I figured out how to download audiobooks to the ipod from our library's virtual branch.  So even when we've maxed out our 75 item limit at the local branch, we still have 10 more titles to use on the digital branch!  Whoo-hoo!  She has been listening like crazy and has already gone through a half-dozen books in the last couple days.  I can hardly keep it loaded with enough to stay ahead of her!  This is a great addition for roadtrips, as she listened the whole way to Huntsville and back on Saturday, as well as during her rest time every day.  She even likes to listen for a bit when she wakes up in the mornings.  Cam Jansens, Boxcar Children, Encyclopedia Brown and My Weird School books are her current choices.  

Friday night bikeride

Friday night Daddy went out with some guy friends, so it was me and the littles hanging out.  Q decided that riding our bikes to Bullritos would be a great idea.  It'd been rainy off and on that day, so I had her check the weather.  15% lowering to 4% of rain in the next few hours of the evening, so sounded like we'd be rain free.

I went outside and was presented with my most lovely-decorated bike.  They went all out...Every spoke and the entire chain...the inside of the wheels....everything.  Thanks......

 Quick pause to appreciate the crepe myrtle flowers confettying our back patio.

He did his own helmet.  Can you tell?

We made a stop at the library and then went and had dinner.  As we were headed home the sky was filled with huge, nasty-looking clouds.  And lightning and thunder.  It looked pretty ugly, and people were pulled over to the side of the road taking photos with their phones.  Which made me a bit nervous.....I told Quinn to step it up and we rode home as quickly as her little legs could pedal.  We made it about 2 minutes before a downpour and that girl road like crazy!  

Good thing I have a basket that fits leftovers!

My cutie co-pilot!  I love him a bit more in aviators.